Duplicate Login Details Enabled Hack of More Than 20 Million Chinese Consumers (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to various Chinese sources including Techweb (Chinese language), police in Zhejiang held a conference on Monday announcing that 20.59 million users of the 'Chinese eBay', taobao.com, had their login details stolen by proxy, when hackers ran user/pass combos from a stolen database of 99 million other users and found that more than 20% were using the same login credentials across different ecommerce sites.

Comments

Less eBay, more Amazon

[magarity]

Taobao is more like Amazon or Newegg Marketplace where everything is "sold by , packed and shipped by Taobao". Any eBay type auctioning is rare.

Re:Less eBay, more Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? "Packed and shipped by". Not sure who told you that but you definitely have never used them. AFAIK they don't pack or ship a thing. Yes, it's not like ebay because of "no auctions", but yes, it's much more like ebay than Amazon. The provide ratings, seller histories, minor guarantees, a basic escrow system, etc. Much more eBay than NewEgg.

I think all the people I know who do business on there, and everyone I've purchased from, would be a little shocked that taobao was doing it for them. You might be thinking more of jd.com, but even they have 3rd party sellers (their tech gear is nearly all them, though).

Ignorance is bliss

[sunderland56]

So, in a nutshell: the average Chinese consumer is just as ignorant about good security practices as the average American. Hardly surprising.

Duh

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"...and found that more than 20% were using the same login credentials across different ecommerce sites."

And this is why you shouldn't do that.

Basic, basic Password Security 101. Ignore at your own risk.